The Pearl Button

The Pearl Button (Spanish: El botón de nácar) is a 2015 Chilean documentary film directed by Patricio Guzmán. It was screened in the main competition section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival^[1] where it won the Silver Bear for Best Script.^[2] It won the Lumière Award for Best Documentary at the 21st Lumière Awards.^[3] Guzmán has described the work as part of a trilogy with Nostalgia for the Light and third film The Cordillera of Dreams focusing on the Andes.^[4]

It explores themes common to other Guzmán films, such as memory and the historical past, particularly that of history's losers rather than victors, recording some of the last surviving members of the original Alacalufe and Yaghan tribes.^[5] A departure for Guzmán is that it does not focus solely on Chile's past under Augusto Pinochet, as the title was partly inspired by a shirt button discovered during a 2004 investigation by Chilean judge Juan Guzmán on a length of rail used to weigh the bodies of Pinochet's victims dumped in the sea and partly by the button after which the Yaghan native Jemmy Button was named when taken aboard HMS Beagle in 1830.^[5]

The film explores the geography and history of Chile, with a focus on water. The narrative examines the fate of two persecuted groups - the indigenous peoples and the victims of the Pinochet regime. Visually it operates across scales using a large parchment map by artist Emma Malig. The topics covered include the far north of Chile, which is the driest place on earth, where radio telescopes in the desert study the universe. The film also touches on personal experiences, such as a school friend lost to the sea.

La narración describe el genocidio de las tribus seminómadas Kawésqar , Selkʼnam , Aónikenk y Yaghan en el extremo sur y cómo su modo de vida fue destruido por el colonialismo y las misiones ^{[ 6 ]} . Para ello, sigue la historia de Jemmy Button, quien fue llevado de Tierra del Fuego a Inglaterra . La película describe los esfuerzos realizados bajo Salvador Allende , presidente de Chile entre 1970 y 1973, para rehabilitar a los indígenas sobrevivientes, y los campos de concentración establecidos posteriormente bajo Pinochet. Muestra cómo los prisioneros eran torturados y sus cuerpos, lastrados con trozos de riel, eran arrojados desde helicópteros al Pacífico . El nombre de la película deriva de uno de esos rieles, recuperado del océano y al que se le encontró un botón de camisa incrustado.

• El botón de perla en IMDb